


laugh at all disaster

by OfShoesAndShips



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Disabled Character, Multi, Violence and stuff, attempted suicide in the prologue, gross historical inaccuracy, gross nautical inaccuracy, gross naval inaccuracy, inaccuracy all round to be honest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2509217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfShoesAndShips/pseuds/OfShoesAndShips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blackbeard’s storm is just the beginning. His death - and Sparrow’s part in it - sends shockwaves through the Caribbean, already battered by the War on Piracy. What follows after is a long journey to recover a certain King, a plot by the most dangerous man on the seven seas, and something like revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: One OC attempts suicide in the prologue, and isn't in the best of places mentally for the rest of the story. 
> 
> \--
> 
> So this came about because Book and I were talking about how the lack of a POTC tv show is rather terrible, and as we yelled excitedly at each other, the idea that it could focus on Anamaria (because she's awesome and overlooked) and her crew was born. And that idea hasn't left me alone since, so here we are.
> 
> Many, many, many thanks to the amazing and patient Book (bookhobbit.tumblr.com) and Heather (geekyblueglasses.tumblr.com) for the beta. You both rock.

The storm never stops.

The deck is six inches deep in water, the boards swelling with it. The rigging is nigh unclimbable, the sails sagging under their own weight even when the wind is at its height. And there is only sometimes wind, often just the roar of thunder to mirror the roar of the ocean, the crack of lightning, the driving rain that needs no wind to drive it. It digs into their skin like knives, freezing cold and painful with it, soaking them right down to the marrow. Salt turns their skin raw, their eyes grow dark, dim, desperate. The screaming of the ship is deafening, caught between them and the crashing of the ceaseless waves. The clouds crack and boom above them, thick and black. The constant pressure crushes them, tightening in their heads and bowing their backs with the weight of it. Their limbs are heavy with exhaustion and forced inaction both. They feel too small for their own salt-scorched skin, throats parched and stomachs aching. Mouths sealed shut with silence, bodies shaking with cold. Some burn blisters into their skin, just to feel a pain of their own making - it doesn’t help.

The six of them that are left move below decks after the first few futile days, staying around the stove in the galley; it’s warm, and it keeps their clothes dry, even if the crew themselves are so sodden that they can almost feel the slow creep of barnacles growing on their skin. It’s the worst doldrums any of them can imagine, trapped in an everlasting storm, with no escape.

There’s not even any rum. The bastard had taken it when he took the sea from them.

-

Mulder uses the last of the dry gunpowder to blow her brains out.

The bullet rolls from her open mouth a second later and she flees to her hammock in the silent hold, pale, shocked and shaking.

“What did we do to deserve this?” she asks, and Ana has no answer for that, so she just lets the girl cry into her shoulder and cling.

She thinks she understands, now, what drove Barbossa and his crew to such lengths, how they became such perversions of themselves.

She lies in her bed in the great cabin, and prays to the only god she knows.

_Deliver us._


	2. Chapter 2

The storm broke with a sound like the shattering of glass.

 

The sun cut through the clouds and the sea fell back, water running from the drowned deck. The Caribbean sun streaked down from a sky seeming all the clearer for the storm it followed. The ship creaked gently, her bones relaxing, and the silence was blissful.

 

They blinked at its suddenness, and pinched themselves; clenched fists tight to carve half-moons into their palms, sought splinters on the ship’s rough timbers. Anything, anything, to wake them from a dream so cruel. But nothing happened, nothing at all. Blood welled, pain digging in its heels; but their heads didn’t clear, and the peace stayed.

 

Mulder turned to her, eyes wide with fear and reluctant hope. Johnson, too, Gunn and Gregory and Durant, all of them looking to her with growing brightness in their eyes. Her jaw tightened and she leant on a barrel to pull herself up, legs shaking, joints creaking like the timbers of her ship. She straightened her hat, rested her hand on her sword hilt, and walked out of the galley, back as poker-straight as she could make it. She ached all the way to her bones, her legs shakily bearing weight they weren’t used to as she climbed up to the deck, her knuckles white around the rail. The hatches were heavy, the bolts stiff; she hit them with the butt of her pistol until they came loose then lifted the hatches, letting sunlight flood the lower decks. She clambered up, scummy water eddying beneath her booted feet. The breeze was warm as it swept across the deck, clean, lightning-fresh and salty. The sun glared down from a cloudless sky and hysterical laughter bubbled up in her chest as she stared out at the blue, glittering sea stretching from horizon to horizon. The sails groaned above her and she looked up, her stomach twisting at the extent of the damage. The foremast was gone, just a stump left, rising jaggedly out of the deck. The capstan was shattered, snapped ropes fluttering in the light breeze. The mainsail sagged low under its own weight, most of the others lost to the sea; those that were left were tattered, little more than waterlogged rags. The helm was intact, but without the majority of her sails she was most likely dead in the water, driven only by the fickle Caribbean currents.

 

The Lady’s favours always did come at a price.

 

“Anamaria!” came a joyful holler from behind her, and she spun around; her eyes widened, disbelieving.  A black-hulled ship was anchored along the starboard side, and she could see the captain’s bright grin even from where she stood.

 

“That’s Captain to you, Sparrow!”

 

“Even after I saved y’ship from an unpleasant and watery demise?”

 

She let herself laugh, the right degree of derisiveness beyond her, and shouted back down.

 

“On deck, lads!”

 

They came up slowly, shielding their eyes. Durant came first, seeming shorter now he wasn’t cramped below decks. Mulder had her arm around Johnson’s chest, holding him up as his bad leg dragged along the deck. Gregory and Gunn came last, shoulder to shoulder, Gunn’s arm outstretched to catch Johnson if he slipped; they were all pale in the sunlight, drawn, haggard. Weakened, but not weak.

 

“Captain, is that-;” Johnson started, eyes wide as he stared at the ship and her particularly smug captain hanging from the rigging.

 

“Yeah,” she said, schooling her grin into something a little less hysterical. She glanced back at him, wincing; then turned to Jack again, raising her voice. “Permission to come aboard, captain?”

 

A few of Jack’s crew hurriedly stepped to, laying a gangway between the ships, and Jack gestured them over in typically expansive fashion, doffing his hat and half-bowing. Ana rolled her eyes but let him be, leading what was left of her crew over onto the _Pearl_. Gunn was the last to step down, looking around with something close to awe.

 

“The _Black Pearl_ , Max!” he hissed, nudging Gregory on the arm and gesturing, trying and failing to keep his enthusiasm discreet.

 

“Aye, and a fine ship she is too, Mr…Ana’s crewman,” Jack said, dropping down onto the deck and strolling over to them.

 

“No finer than the _Namaka_.” Ana said, and for a fraction of a second it looked like Jack was perfectly willing to throw her overboard for such heresy. Gregory stepped unnoticed away from Gunn, to stand by Ana’s shoulder. His hand, while not on the hilt of his sword per se, was most certainly positioned to suggest that said sword could be drawn at a moment’s notice were any wrong moves made.

 

“Well, since the _Namaka_ is a little worse for wear at the moment-;”

 

“And no less fine for that.”

 

“Ah, but _my_ ship is not currently dead in the water. And my ship was going to tow you and yours to a port of your choice - I hear Tortuga is lovely this time of year, any time of the year really - but now I might just put you all in a longboat and leave you all to your own miserable devices, savvy?”

 

“Feel free, _Captain_.”

 

“…right then! Lads! Lower a boat!”

 

Jack’s crew didn’t move, glancing between him and Ana in confusion. After a second, Gibbs stepped forward. “Jack. Cap’n-;”

 

“She insulted m’ship!”

 

“Aye, that’s as may be, but tis bad luck to rescue a crew just to abandon ‘em. And they have a fellow as looks t’ be needin’ a doctor.”

 

Johnson, seeing his moment, took the opportunity to look as pathetic as he could. Mulder looked like she was close to smacking him, or worse, having already been looking murderously at Sparrow; Durant had a hand on her shoulder, ready to hold her back if need be.

 

Jack pouted, glowered at them, then waved his hand. “ _Fine_. Get below then, all of you. Get y’selves seen t’.”

 

-

 

The ship’s doctor, a man who somehow managed to be pot-bellied and rat-faced at the same time, red and rheumy-eyed, declared Ana fit, if underfed and in need of a good sleep. Mulder’s splinters he excavated and slathered in a paste that stank like bilgewater, the same paste that went on Gunn’s blisters and the rope burns on Durant’s hands. But he couldn’t save Johnson’s leg, so long after the fact as it was.

 

Ana and Gregory held Johnson down as he tried to scream around the belt between his teeth, blood getting everywhere. Give the doctor his due, he was efficient enough - ex-navy, or so his accent proclaimed - and certainly better than some Ana could mention. Johnson passed out after a few minutes, and Ana shooed Gregory out, hanging back herself to give the doctor room. He worked in near silence to stop the bleeding, some ugly, messy procedure that Ana, no matter how sturdy her stomach, would have no part of. After what felt like hours the doctor stepped back, bloody to his elbows, his apron splattered, but gave her a soft nod.

 

“He’ll live, provided the wound is kept clean of infection. The carpenter’s mate should be able to whittle him a replacement.”

 

Ana slapped him for that.

 

-

 

The sun went down without fuss, a blue and pink haze tainting the sky. Ana leant against the gunwale, watching it sink. Behind her, Marty and Cotton were playing cards by lanternlight, the parrot squawking every so often as it chased after Jack - the monkey, that is. His namesake sat at the helm, having given up his cabin to Johnson. If Ana leant out far enough she could see the Namaka behind them, being slowly towed towards Tortuga, that most disreputable of ports. Still, it was close, friendly enough, and only technically French. It would do them some good, the shore-leave, after so long on unfamiliar seas. Durant would want to visit his girl on Salt Cay, as well, might even leave the ship for somewhat more legal employ if she’d had the little ’un. She wouldn’t blame them if they all left, if they put ashore at Tortuga and never looked her way again. If it wasn’t for the Namaka, well, she might have done the same, but she was bound to that ship just as strongly as Jack was to his Pearl, if without the stealing and resurrecting and mutiny and such. But still, it was her ship, hers, not her mother’s as the _Jolly Mon_ had been, not Jack’s, not anyone else’s, and that, well, that meant something. It had to.

 

The boards creaked a bit behind her and she turned; Mulder stood there, back a few paces from the side, staring out at the sea with a distant look in her eyes. A rough blanket was wrapped around her shoulders and her hair hung loose, making her look like the girl in that song, waiting for her sailor bold.

 

“Mulder?”

 

Mulder jumped, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Captain.”

 

“Rum?” Ana shook the half-empty bottle at her, and Mulder shrugged, coming closer and taking it; her knuckles were white around the neck, holding so tightly Ana thought the bottle might shatter. Her gulps were almost desperate, and when she passed the bottle back it was as though she was forcing herself to.

 

They were quiet for a while, watching the sea swallow the sun, standing shoulder to shoulder as the _Pearl_ swayed under them. Marty and Cotton finished their game, going below; Sparrow hadn’t moved, probably fast asleep. It was only them, and the wide open ocean.

 

“I shouldn’t be here,” Mulder said, almost to herself.

 

“What?”

 

Mulder’s mouth tightened, and she gave her head a quick shake, as if to clear it. “The fits my mother would have if she could see me now,” she said, and Ana laughed.

 

“Sailor on a pirate ship?”

 

“Anything but a dutiful wife would have her wringing her hands and praying for my soul,” Mulder smiled, ruefully, stretching an arm out over the side as if she could reach the waves.

 

Ana took a swig of rum, trying not to laugh at the image. “Sea’s not in your blood, then.”

 

“I don’t know. I just know that-; that the day I saw sails on the horizon was the day I finally knew what I wanted.”

 

“You were a stowaway?”

 

Mulder shook her head. “I spoke English,” she shrugged, “Which was all they wanted. If my father knew what I’d do with my education he would have spent the money on little Agnes and saved himself the waste.”

 

“You miss them?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Even with the threat of the noose hanging over you?”

 

Mulder laughed, bitterly. “I can still taste gunpowder, Captain. What makes you think I care?”

 

-

 

It was strange, being on a truly living ship after so long on one that was near death; the sound, the movement, the stink. It didn’t feel real, felt like at any moment she was going to open her eyes and find out she’d been dreaming. More often than not, Ana found herself slumped against the wall outside the cabin Johnson had been given or below the steps up to the quarterdeck, spurning the sympathetic looks the _Pear_ l’s crew were forever sending her.  Durant had dived straight into the work, finding his solace in a ship that responded to his touch; Gregory was up in the crows nest with his spyglass, impatient for the sight of land, and Gunn stood at the prow, also watching the horizon. Mulder was below, having hardly stirred from her hammock. Whether she was asleep or drunk Ana didn’t know, and she supposed it made little enough difference. They’d reach Tortuga soon; that would do them all some good. Drink and sex and floors that didn’t move, at least not if you could hold your liquor. Ana stretched out her legs as far as the small space would allow and sighed, fiddling with the knife in her hands to stop herself from draining the last of yet another bottle of Jack’s precious rum that sat, ignored, by her knee. She could hear the _Namaka_ ’s uneasy groans, being towed slowly along, bruised and broken as she was. He’d said he was happy to lend her the money for repairs, though, which was almost as bad an idea as it was a good one. Everyone who ever owed Jack Sparrow anything lived to regret it, if they lived at all.

 

“You see that lame lad the captain brought on board? ‘s a damn shame for such a young lad.”

 

Ana frowned, peering between the steps; two sailors she didn’t recognise were scrubbing the deck not two yards from her, heads bent together; even so, their voices carried well enough.

 

“Aye, t’were mighty bad luck for ‘em to get caught on their first sailin’ out.”

 

The first nodded sagely, and it seemed the conversation was over, but then the second piped up again.

 

“That’s the reason y’ dun’t get lady captains, y’ know.”

 

“Wat?”

 

She caught sight of Durant in the corner of her eye, obviously listening even though he made it look like he wasn’t, and she willed him to ignore them. Jack didn’t take well to fighting on his ship - it awoke too many bad memories.

 

“I’m just sayin’, right, if they’d ‘ad a decent man of a captain they wunt’ve tried to go after the _Revenge_ anyhow.”

 

There was a soft thud as Durant dropped the rope he’d been splicing, the shift of cotton as he flowed to his feet.

 

“We didn’t,” he said.

 

There was a pause; Durant wasn’t a short man, nor a lean one. Then the second one one steeled himself. “Didn’t wat, eh?”

 

“We didn’t engage the _Revenge_.”

 

“Then hows did ye get y’selves all trapped in the storm, if y’ din’t fight ‘er?”

 

“We chose not to run. The _Revenge_ engaged us.”

 

The second nodded, as if Durant had made his point for him. “Aye, and any other captain worth their salt would’ve seen that ship and run for greener pastures. ‘S all that blood loss, sends their heads stupid.”

 

“The crew of the _Namaka_ are - were - not cowards and you do them a disservice by assuming the Captain’s voice was obeyed unwillingly. Do you really believe that had we turned tail and run, Blackbeard would not have chased us? That he would not have hunted us, relishing the chase? We would have lost, whatever the Captain had ordered. And she had us stand our ground, like men, not dogs. Those that died died with their swords in their hands, died with valour and dignity. Do not speak ill of that which you did not witness.”

 

-

 

Ana leant against the doorframe, rum bottle once again in hand, trying and failing to ignore the sagging of the blanket where Johnson’s leg should have been. He’d liked going aloft, Johnson had, seeing the sea stretching out around them as far as the eye could see. If she let herself she could still hear his scream as he fell, the boom of the cannon that sent the foremast falling after him.

  
“Captain?”

 

Ana scowled, taking a swig of rum and relishing the scorch.

 

“It wasn’t your fault, Captain,” Mulder said from behind her, tone insistent.

 

“How far out are we?”

 

“Sparrow says about a day and a half. But-;”

 

“Oughtn’t you be asleep, Mulder?”

 

“Can’t.”

 

“Drown y’self in a rum barrel then, like the rest of us. I don’t need your reassurances.”

 

“No, seems not. Goodnight, Captain.” Mulder murmured, sounding hurt. The timbers creaked under her as she left, but leave she did, and Ana stood there in that doorway until dawn.

 

-

 

“Land ho!”

  



	3. Chapter 3

The sky was darkening above them, night closing in as the _Namaka_ limped into the near full harbour, the _Pearl_ having sought mooring on the other side of the headland. Full, not of the usual mixture of ships bearing sailors in varying states of drunken disrepute, false colours flying proud, but of what were more the skeletons of ships than ships proper. Colours flew but they flew weakly, and for how full the harbour was it was close to silent, just soft, pained creaks and the lapping of the water.

 

“S’like a graveyard,” Gunn murmured, leaning against the gunwale, and Gregory smacked him on the shoulder.

 

“Shouldn’t say that, Evan.”

 

“Look at ‘em, though. All bruised and broken. Was there a war on, while we were…where we were?”

Gregory frowned. “Wouldn’t’ve thought so. Navy haven’t been so close on our arses since the Hunter got what were comin’ to him.”

 

“Aye. An ‘urricane, then?”

 

“‘s it matter?”

 

“Does if y’re a nosy bastard.” Gunn said, grinning up at him.

 

Gregory huffed and smacked him again. “You’re a gossipin’ old maid, Evan.”

 

Gunn nodded, staring out at the storm-swept ships lying low in the water, piles of broken driftwood held together with spit and prayer.

 

“Mighty sad though, don’t y’ think?” he said, after a minute.

 

“What is?”

 

“All the broken ships. Most of ‘em won’t sail again, I’d wager.”

 

“It’ll all go to fixin’ the rest of them, though. Waste not want not, as me ma always said.”

 

“You two quit nattering like old fishwives and get us moored!”

 

A grin twitched across Gunn’s face. “Aye aye, Cap!”

 

☠

 

Tortuga was the same as ever. Riotous and rowdy, drunken, debauched, with bad rum and worse sailors. Glorious, low and warm and close, candlelit, rouged and lead-whitened. Ana sat in one of its many, many inns, in the darkest corner she could find. Durant and Gunn were watching the ship, Johnson still being under the eye of the _Pearl_ ’s doctor. Gregory was probably attempting to catch the eye of one of Tortuga’s cheaper whores, and Mulder had just vanished as soon as she had left the ship, so who knew. Probably gone in pursuit of rum.

 

Ana swung her feet up into the table and tipped her hat down to hide her face, holding her tankard loosely in one hand. Around her was the hum of drunken French and she sank deeper into her corner, wanting to avoid trouble, if only for tonight. Tortuga’s typical stench, of rum, sex, shit, and above all unwashed sailor, hung heavy in the air. Similar enough to the _Pearl_ , but there was solid land under her feet, land she hadn’t felt for heaven-knew how long. Her hand shook around the tankard and she clenched it in response, knocking the rest of the rum back and then sending the tankard skidding across the tabletop with a sharp flick of her wrist. Dreadful stuff. At least they didn’t water it down, here. Beds were clean, too, for a given value of the word. She signalled to the barmaid for another drink, not moving her eyes from her knees.

 

There came the scrape of chair legs on uneven stone, the sound of folding cloth and nearby breath as someone sat opposite her. She didn’t look up, but took her pistol out of her belt, making a show of cleaning it with her shirt cuff.

 

“Still threatening me after so long and profitable a friendship, Ana? I’m hurt.”

 

“What’re y’ doing here, Sparrow?”

 

“Well, my intentions in comin’ here were to ‘ave a quiet drink in Tortuga with a fellow captain. Whether or not that comes to pass remains to be seen.”

 

“What about my plans to have a quiet drink alone?”

 

“Very borin’ plan. Needs some spicin’ up. Myself being said spice.”

 

Ana grunted, unconvinced, but put the pistol away.

 

“There. Friendlier already.”

 

She looked up, and glared at his grinning face. The beads in his hair glittered at her and she looked away again, annoyed by their ceaseless twinkling.

 

The barmaid thunked two tankards down on the table, making Ana jump; she said something in French to Sparrow that made him laugh, and then she swayed away again, vanishing into the crowd almost as quickly as she’d appeared.

 

Ana grabbed for hers, gulping so fast that some slopped over her chin, down her neck into the ratty collar of her shirt.

 

“Ana?” he sounded concerned, and her lips thinned.

 

“What.”

 

“You’re wasting good rum there love, slow down.”

 

“It’s horsepiss.”

 

“Still rum.”

 

She conceded the point with a shrug, resting the tankard on her lap and tilting her head back so she could look at him properly without lifting the brim of her hat.

 

“What do you want, Sparrow?”

 

“Since it’s my coin ‘at’s buyin’ that rum I would have thought you’d be more hospitable.”

 

“What do you want?”

 

He sighed, folding his arms on the table and leaning towards her a little. “You’ve been all bottled up for months, dear Ana.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“Lost most of y’ crew.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“Lost all y’ money.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“And almost lost y’ new and shiny ship.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“While alcohol is indeed the _traditional_ method of dealin’ with such matters, as a person with a certain amount of experience in losing crew, money, and ships…” he paused, and she looked up to see a somewhat pained expression cross his face, “I might be offerin’ my services as a person in whose presence you may want to broach the topic of your fickle yet ferocious female emotions.”

 

“I’d rather you shut me in the Locker and threw away the key.”

 

“Ah. Thought so.”

 

“Did Mulder put you up to this?”

 

“Johnson, actually. Said you’d been moping outside his door for the past three days.”

 

She huffed and took another swig of rum, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Interfering bastard.”

 

“Ha! So you were moping.”

 

“No.”

 

“In an otherwise delicate emotional state?”

 

“Sparrow.”

 

“That wasn’t a no.”

 

“No. Shut up and leave me in peace.”

 

He leant back, chair creaking, and slurped his rum. She could feel his expectant look itching across her skin, but ignored him, going back to her rum - if slightly less enthusiastically this time.

 

“Also, since we are in fact not on the subject, why did you slap Wentworth?”

 

“Who?”

 

“The quack.”

 

“He joked about Johnson’s leg.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“Good job he’d just saved his life or it’d be a lot worse.” Ana glugged at her rum and Jack stretched back in his chair like a cat, looking around absently.

 

“What’re you really doing here, Sparrow?” she asked after a few more minutes of near silence.

 

“I can’t pay a visit to the greatest of all Earth’s paradises without being suspected of being motivated by multiple ulterior motivations?”

 

“You always have multiple ulterior motivations.”

 

“…true.”

 

“Though not the point. What. Do. You. Want.”

 

“What we all want, really. Sea. Ship. Rum. Gold enough to make…Creole? Croesus? Creosote? Gold enough to make ‘im jealous, at any rate.”

 

“Jack.”

 

He sighed, deflating. “Saw Tom Anstis.”

 

“Wasn’t he dead?”

 

“So was I, once upon a time. You too, if the tales are to be believed. And Rackham, Pelham, Roberts, Harvey, Bonfils…all of ‘em, seems like. Can’t move for bloody not-dead pirates.”

 

“Vane?”

  
Jack shuddered. “Actually dead. Saw him on Jones’ crew. Now the whelp’s crew, o’ course, heaven help us.”

 

“Of course it doesn’t help that you’ve stolen from half those men and sold the rest up the river.”

 

“What was I supposed to do? Declare my undyin’ loyalty? They’re _pirates_ , Ana.”

 

“And now they want to kill you.”

 

He shrugged. “I think they’re rather more bothered about their ships being shipshape at the moment. But-;” he paused, standing and resettling his hat on his head, “Might go south at any moment, might it now, and I don’t p’ticularly want to be ‘ere when it does. Be careful, Ana. You’ve got a mighty fine ship there, you have, be a shame to see it captained by one of those vultures.”

 

Ana looked up at him, a little touched. “Thank you, Jack.”

 

He nodded, paused as if he was going to say something more, and then walked away.

 

-

 

She locked the bedroom door behind her, leaving the key on the washstand. Some kind soul had found her some reasonably clean clothes to part with Jack’s money for, tidily darned and close to fitting, by the looks of it. The jug standing under the washstand was full of hot water, a cloth over the side of the bowl and a few scraps of cheap lye soap on the wooden stand itself. She felt absurdly pleased by that, the prospect of cleanliness after so long in that accursed storm. Ana was certain there was still blood in her hair.

 

She peeled herself free of all her tattered layers, occasionally resorting to cutting them off if a knot was being troublesome. As soon as she was standing only in her skin, clothes scattered about her on the floor, she dived for the warm water, scrubbing herself clean as best she could with the rough cloth and half the soap. The rest she used on her hair, tossing the bowl of newly grey water out of the window and refilling it from the jug before dunking almost her whole head in. She stood there scrubbing until her hair was rough and tangled but clean, ish.

 

It took at least an hour to wrestle it back into something resembling neatness, tugging at knots with a metal comb until her arm ached. But it hung straight eventually and she fell back onto the bed, and for all its hard scratchiness she was the most comfortable she’d been in _months_.

 

-

 

She woke up to the dawn sun fighting its way through the grimy windows. She stretched and sighed, rolling onto her back and glaring at the ceiling. Her head was pounding, which was bad enough but luckily her only symptom; she dragged herself off the bed and into the new clothes, clean calico crisp against her skin. She grabbed her boots, belt, pistol and hat from the pile on the floor but left the rest, feeling more like herself than she had in weeks when her hat was secure on her head and her pistol sandwiched against her hip. It was empty, but no-one else needed to know that - and anyway, it could always be used as a cudgel if push came to shove. She slipped out of the tavern the back way, it being quieter that way; Tortuga had a warren of alleys more narrow and winding than even London, and most stuck to the main streets. Those who lingered in the alleys were those poor souls that lived there, eking out a living from the sailors and their ships, those poor souls that’d got themselves lost, and those who were trying to avoid the possibility of running into people they wished didn’t know them.

 

It was possible to get to the docks without setting foot on the main streets, and looking up at the tall, bowing buildings that leant into each other like shitfaced sailors, she thought that it was probably possible to get to the docks without setting foot on the ground at all; and usually these back ways were reasonably quiet, everyone either too hungover or too miserable to bother with making any noise other than a grunted ‘ _bon maten_.’ But today even the alleys were heaving with drunk, penniless - and assumed dead - pirates. She shoved her way through the crowd, keeping her hat low over her face and her hand on her pistol. Some she recognised, most she didn’t, but it was hard to tell in the crawling mass of tattered cloth and salt-cured leather. It reminded her more of rats than of sailors, fleeing their half-sunken ships in search of land.

 

It seemed strange to her now, after so long, the weight of people pressing in all around her, the still, quiet sky, the ground that didn’t buck under her feet with swell after swell. The sea-smell in her nostrils was second hand, mixed in with skin and clothes and hair, not the strong, pure scent that rose ever-present from the waves. She felt off-kilter, ungrounded, unreal. Most of them looked like they felt the same, their eyes haunted and their faces gaunt. The night’s sleep had done her good, but not near enough, and if she wasn’t mistaken the majority of these bastards hadn’t slept at all.

 

She seemed to reach the harbour without warning, not having the masts cutting into the sky to mark the approach. The few that stood were hidden behind the ramshackle buildings until she was almost at the sea, her _Namaka_ one of those few. She looked tired, if ships could - but the ships on either side of her were in even worse shape. Ana hated to think how much gold would be being spent in Tortuga in the next few months, how much gold would be stolen for the purpose, how many ships would be stolen as soon as they were sailable. She made a mental note to increase the watch crew later, as soon as she had notice of how many were coming back and how many, if any, were leaving; but that could wait, for a few days at least.

 

“Captain!”

 

She looked up, holding on to her hat, and saw Gunn grinning at her from the top of the gangway.     

 

“Morning,” she said, walking up and then dropping down onto the deck beside him. “Any trouble?”

 

“None. Sparrow sent a couple of his men over with Johnson, ‘bout an hour ago, though. We put ‘im in your cabin, Cap, Sparrow were saying somethin’ ‘bout turnabout-;”

 

Ana laid a hand on his shoulder and his mouth clicked shut. “Go get Durant and get y’selves ashore. Round up everyone else who wants to stay on the crew and get ‘em back here by nightfall.”

 

“Aye, Cap.”  

 

She could see him resisting the urge to salute and rolled her eyes. Bloody ex-navyboys.  She gave him a light slap on the shoulder to get him moving and stepped past him, heading to her cabin below the quarterdeck.

 

She knocked and waited for a second’s worth of impatient politeness and then pushed the door open, waking him.

 

Johnson blinked sleepily and frowned, pushing himself up onto one elbow. “Mornin’, Captain. What can I do you for?”

 

She closed the door to, ignoring him for the moment, and strolled over to her sea chest, unlocking it and lifting the lid. Inside was her spare cutlass, among other pieces of reasonably deadly weaponry, and she buckled the swordbelt around her waist, noting with some surprise how much tighter she had to pull it. She tested the edge of the cutlass and found it still sharp; she sheathed it, shifting the belt around so that the hilt rested just under her ribcage, behind the pistol. So armed, she walked over to the bedside and moved his crutches from where they lay across her chair so she could sit down.

 

“Checking up on you. Rum?” she offered him her flask, a plain, battered thing, full of rather good rum that she’d nicked from the _Pearl_.

 

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and took it, drinking roughly before handing it back half empty, “Good rum. Sparrow’s?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“Mm,” he fell back into the pillows, and Ana’s conscience twinged when she noticed just how pale he was, how gaunt, “Bloody quack wouldn’t let me have any. Should be shot.”

 

“I’ll toast to that. Mighty bad opinion of good drink, these doctors ‘ave.”

 

“Ain’t natural for those as calls themselves pirates.”

 

“Nope.”

 

They fell into silence, then, Ana slouching down in the chair and trying not to let her eyes return to the space where his leg should have been. She’d seen people with amputations before - this was no different, not really. It might be the first time she’d ever been present for this part, the hoping for the wound not to become infected, the waiting for a pronouncement of good health, the clawing of irrational guilt, but that didn’t give her an excuse to stare.

 

“‘spose you’ll be puttin’ me ashore before long,” he said, sounding half asleep.

 

Ana frowned. “Some bastard been putting tales in your head, Johnson?”

 

“Ain’t got a leg, ‘ave I. Stands to reason. Sorry.”

 

“I once knew a man with no legs and only one arm. One of the best sailors I’ve ever crewed with. If you want to leave I’m not stoppin’ y’. But I’m happy for you to stay if you want.”

 

He turned his head, looking at her with tired, bloodshot eyes. “Y’ mean that, Captain?”

 

“Aye. You’re a good rigger, Johnson. Can’t see why that’d stop being true just because you lost a leg. It’ll take a while, but we’ve got the time.”

 

He smiled. “Thanks, Captain.”

 

Ana nodded and stood. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep, then. Holler if you need anything.”

 

“Captain!” he cried just as she turned her back on him, and she sighed, looking back.

 

“What?”

 

He grinned. “Any chance of some more of that rum ‘fore you go?”

 

She sighed, rolling her eyes, but gave it back to him. “Keep it. But don’t let Mulder find it, you know what she’s like.”

 

“Do I ever. Don’t worry, Captain, your rum is safe with me.”

 

-

 

Ana spent the day cataloguing the damage to the _Namaka_ and their supplies, counting out the repair money that Jack had given her, and praying that it would stretch; she’d need a new crew, too - even with the best will in the world, five wasn’t nearly enough to sail.  And crews needed food and water and beds, as well as a working ship. Which needed money. More money than she actually had.

 

But the _Namaka_ was in reasonable shape, really, compared to the other ships around her. Structurally she was a bit worse for wear, full of gaping holes from cannon fire, foremast gone, lying low in the water - but it was nothing that a couple of weeks and Tortuga’s best shipwrights couldn’t fix. Hopefully. Only two of the cannons were missing, and while ten guns would make battle even hairier than it had been with twelve she couldn’t spare the money. They’d need a job, soon, to cover the debt she’d more than likely run up - but Durant knew someone who knew someone in the rumrunning trade, so that was something at least. Then maybe they could get back to the usual business, once they had enough in their hold and their bellies to keep them going for a time. Still, it was by no means definite that the _Namaka_ , or her crew, would even make it out of Tortuga - it was the kind of place that sucked at a person, a parasitic worm of a town that caught people with kind, comforting hands and then left them in an alley with no boots, no teeth, and no pulse. And with all the extra desperate pirates in town, well, only a fool would go there unarmed.

 

She wasn’t really expecting any of crew to come back, truth be told. Not that she expected them to fall prey to Tortuga just yet - no, they were all still too much in love with the sea for that, even after the storm - but she expected them to either stay in port for a while or join another ship, not stay with the one that had sailed them into hell. And as night fell it looked like none of them _would_ return - the docks were dark, the lights of the town glowing filthy amber in the distance. Sailors were shouting but not in voices she recognised, low and rough and rum-thickened. Johnson was asleep, again; he’d woken occasionally, throughout the day - moaned about the hardtack she’d brought him, eaten several bowls of stew, and badgered her into playing cards for rum rations - but mostly he slept, and it seemed to be doing him some good.

 

Suddenly there came the hollow pound of feet on the gangway and sharp laughter - Ana was on her feet in seconds, sword in hand. Then she sheathed it, scowling.

 

“I said _nightfall_ , Gunn.”

 

He absolutely did not look contrite as he hopped off the gangway. “So you did, Captain, but things ‘appened that delayed us.”

 

“Things?”

 

“I don’t believe you really want to know, Captain,” said Durant as he jumped down, glaring at Gunn.

 

“No, I expect I don’t,” she muttered, then raised her voice, “All you lot get y’selves something to drink and something to sit on, we’ve got the Articles to go over. My cabin, ten minutes.”

 

-

 

The low light of the cabin was kinder to the crew than either the harsher daylight or jaundiced moon had been, skimming lightly over their faces, hiding the worst in shadow. They all looked to have used the day well, cleaner and less tattered. Mulder had found a Navy coat from somewhere, missing its brocade, and next to the black skirt that fell just past the tops of her cavalier boots she looked almost classy, if you ignored the weaponry and the sour expression. Gregory, somehow, had found the exact copy of what he had been wearing before, right down to the waistcoat, only cleaner, but the others were just in whatever they could find, however mismatched. Durant had even brought some for Johnson, including a hat which he had promptly squashed onto his head at a particularly rakish angle, grinning widely.

 

The Book was open on Ana’s desk, though it was Mulder behind the quill, her penmanship being the neatest; she’d turned the chair to face half towards the bed so she wasn’t cut off from the rest of them, and her free hand was holding a tankard, drips of grog making their slow and sticky way down the side. Even so, she seemed separate, holding herself in, her shoulders tense and her face closed off. Ana kept sending her sharp glances but she didn’t seem to notice, her right thumb stroking absently of the barbs of the quill and her eyes distant.

 

“Right,” Ana said, once everyone had settled themselves and had a few sips of grog to take the edge off, “If any of you have plans to leave the Namaka, this is the time to say so. You want to, that’s fine, I’m not stopping you.”

 

“No, no, no,” Gregory said, waving his tankard for emphasis or possibly because he’d, in his inebriation, forgotten how to keep his hand still, “We’re staying. All of us.”

 

There was a chorus of murmured agreement, and a great deal of loose-necked nodding from most of the crew, crowded in a semicircle around the bed. Johnson was sitting up against the headboard, sober at Mulder’s insistence, and thus his nodding was rather less loose-necked.

 

Ana nodded to Mulder then, who wrote down the names of all present in her crisp, unsmudged hand.  

“And you’re still happy with me as captain?”

 

More nodding, and the scratch of the quill.

 

Ana paused. This was the difficult part.

 

“Since Tully and Bower were both killed in the battle-;”

 

Tankards were raised in salute. “To Tully and Bower. Good men both,” Johnson said.

 

“Aye,” they all said, and drank.

 

“May Blackbeard and his undead bastard crew rot in whatever godforsaken corner of the Locker is reserved for ‘em.”

 

“Aye!”

 

They drank again, with much more enthusiasm.

 

“-since they were both killed in the battle, we need nominations for bo’sun and quartermaster. Anyone but Gregory, his being carpenter.”

 

The others looked at each other.

 

“Not me,” Gunn said, shaking his head with some vigour. “I made Bo’sun’s mate once, jumped ship.”

 

“Too much like hard work, eh, Evan?” Gregory said, grinning.

 

“Aye. An’ by navy countin’, for bo’sun it’d be either Durant or Mulder.”

 

Johnson nodded. “Well, I ain’t doin’ it, bedbound as I am.”

 

“Not for long,” Ana cut in, and he shrugged.

 

“Still ain’t doin’ it.”

 

“I’ll do it, then,” Durant said, and the others nodded, grateful that the decision was taken out of their hands.

 

“All in favour of Durant as bo’sun, raise hands.” Mulder said, already dipping the quill.

 

All hands but his rose.

 

Mulder wrote his name and new rank, before putting down the quill and turning to the rest of them.  
  
“I suggest double shares for Bo’sun, since Grace is expecting.”

 

The rest nodded their approval, though Durant looked rather surprised. “Thank you,” he murmured, and Mulder turned back to the book.

 

“And quartermaster?”

 

The cabin fell silent.

 

“Mulder,” Gregory said, eventually.

 

“What? No! Johnson-;”

 

“Can’t be trusted not to fiddle the books and gamble half of it away,” That came from Johnson himself.

 

“Gunn-;”

 

Gunn’s hands shot up. “Don’t look at me!”

 

Mulder turned to Ana then, beseeching.

 

Ana shook her head. “You know your numbers, you speak the languages the rest of us don’t, you know one end of a quill from the other. Having been on a merchant ship I daresay you can forge the paperwork?”

 

“Well, yes, but…”

 

“Why not?”

 

Mulder glanced around at their expectant faces and took a deep breath. “All in favour of me as quartermaster, raise hands.”

 

All hands but hers rose.

 

“Well then,” Mulder said, sounding resigned, “I suppose we have our answer, don’t we?”

 

She wrote her name between Ana’s and Durant’s, QM in careful letters after it. The articles that followed were written in a haze, her mind blank of suggestions of her own, and her occasional protests to suggestions from the others  were only token.

 

By the time they’d descended into drunken, petty arguing, she’d vanished.

-

 

Ana found her an hour later, sitting on the edge of the dock.

 

“You want to tell me what that was about?” she asked softly, coming forward. She baulked slightly at the long drop between the dock and the sea, but sat down beside her anyway.

 

Mulder shrugged.

 

“You’re getting your nice new skirt all filthy.”

 

“Captain-;”

 

“Ana.”

 

Mulder turned to her in shock, and Ana decided to count that a victory. “When we’re ashore,” she added, because friendliness was one thing but potential insubordination was quite another.

 

Mulder nodded, her mouth twitching.

 

“You staying here all night or coming back aboard?”

 

She shrugged.

 

“If you wanted to leave you should have said so.”

 

“I don’t want to leave,” Mulder murmured, and there was the thickness of unshed tears in her voice. She swallowed hard and screwed her eyes shut, clenching her fist around the bottle that Ana hadn’t even noticed she had.

 

“Mulder-;”

 

“Nell. When we’re ashore,” she said suddenly, and blushed.

 

“I can help you, if you want to find a new ship.”

 

“Not many ships that’ll take a girl on,” she said, and Ana looked at her in confusion for a moment before the penny dropped.

 

“I took you on because you were a good sailor, Nell, it wasn’t a favour. You owe me nothing and I won’t have you thinking that you do.”

 

Mulder laughed, but it was bitter, disbelieving. She went to take a swig of the bottle but Ana reached across and stopped her, taking it from her unresisting hands and throwing out into the harbour, where the bottle smashed against the side of a ship and rum ran like blood down into the sea.

 

“First rule of Tortuga - no getting drunk alone.”

 

“You’re here.”

 

“Aye, but I’m not getting drunk am I?”

 

Mulder looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Do you want to be quartermaster?” Ana asked, then.

 

Mulder looked away. “No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I-;” her hands clenched in her lap, kicking her feet back against the seaweed slicked timber, “I’m not-;”

 

“Heaven help me, Mulder, if you’re about to say ‘I’m not good enough,’ I’ll push you into the sea.”

 

That startled a laugh out of her. “But I’m _not_ good enough.”

 

“The crew elected you, didn’t they?”

 

“The crew are four men strong, excluding us, and it’s not like they had much choice.”

 

“They still chose you. As did I.”

 

“I believe my point still stands.”

 

“You believe wrong. I trust you. The crew trust you. Trust yourself, won’t you, you bloody idiot.”

 

“You didn’t even know who I _was_ , before the storm.”

 

“I know you now.”

 

“Do you, indeed.”

 

“Aye.”

 

The corner of Mulder’s mouth lifted in the tiniest of smiles. “I’m not taking double shares,” she said, and Ana laughed.

 

“No, I didn’t think you would. Awkward bloody quartermaster you’re going to be, aren’t you?”

 

“You voted for me, remember.”

 

“So I did. So I did.”

 

-


End file.
